1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of networking, and, more particularly, to dynamically assigning devices to network jobs based upon intended recipient locations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many problems exist with conventionally networked devices that can be frustrating to users and can consume excessive quantities of information technology resources. A user must typically specify a printer to which a document is to be outputted. This printer is often designated by a network name. A network name is a device identifier that uniquely identifies the printer within the network, which may seem cryptic to a user. A user who wants to send results to a known printer having an unknown network name will often physically walk to the printer, read the network name, walk back to their workstation, then select the desired network name from a list of available printers. The user will then have to walk back over to the printer to retrieve paper output.
Some users not wishing to travel to the printer to determine a network name may select a network name without being entirely sure that the selected printer is a desired one. When the user gets up to retrieve a print job and notices the selected network name was different from a desired printer, the user will typically take one of two actions. The user may search for the previously selected printer and retrieve the document already generated by that printer. The user may also note the desired printer's network name, return to their workstation, select the desired printer, and resend the print job. The already printed document will subsequently be forgotten, which can consume resources unnecessarily, can pose a security risk of others reading the forgotten print job, and can have other harmful effects.
Another problem with conventionally networked devices relates to workload distribution. Users typically print to a default printer, regardless of a current load placed upon that printer. As a result, a user often has to wait an excessive time for a job to print, even though other unused printers are available for handling the print job. Printers that have been established as the default printer for high output users tend to break and run out of supplies much more rapidly than other printers.
Additionally, many offices have established capability differentiated printers, where specific printers are intended to be exclusively utilized for specialized network jobs. For example, a color laser printer having an expensive cost per page can be intended to be utilized only for published documents, marketing material, or proofs. One or more high speed printers can be reserved for excessively large print jobs. Other printers can be designated for poster size prints, for confidential documents, and for other uses. Unfortunately, mistakes in sending print jobs to wrong printers are common. These mistakes can be due to user confusion regarding a proper method to select printers, user habits of sending all jobs to a default printer, and the like.
What is needed is a new, more intuitive technique for conveying output to networked devices. Optimally, output should be automatically provided to devices located near intended output recipients, without requiring an explicit user selection of a networked device. This feature would be particularly important for mobile users that often work from different locations. Ideally, additional factors such as device load, device specialization, job attributes, and the like should be considered when assigning jobs to networked devices.